James newman



J. NEWMAN. MAKING METAL RODS OR TUBES.

No. 12,000. Patented Mar. 23, 1854.

"U ITE STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES NEWMAN, OF BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

MAKING METAL RODS AND TUBES,

Specification of Letters Patent No. 12,000, dated November 28, 1854.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, JAMES NEWMAN, ofBirmingham, in the county of \Varwick, in that part of the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, manufacturer, asubject of Her Britannic Majesty, have invented Improvements in theManufacture of Metallic Rods, Rails, Bars, and Tubes; and I do herebydeclare that the following is a description of the nature of my saidinvention and of the manner in which the same is to be performedthat isto say The nature of my said invention of improvements in themanufacture of metallic rods, rails and bars consists in the productionof a strong and economical metal rod, rail or bar having the appearanceof solid metal made with a core or center of sand, sandy, earthy, ashyor other arenaceous material rendered solid and stony or vitreous byramming or pressure and the action of the fire during the course ofmanufacture and the nature of my improvements in the manufacture ofmetallic tubes consists in producing such rods as aforesaid andafterward boring or drilling out the core or center of the rod and themanner in which my said invention is to be performed is ascertained asfollows, namely: WVhen iron is the metal employed and bars or rods areintended to be made I take a skelp or strip of iron of the requisitelength, breadth and thickcers or dies having bell-mouthed aperturestherein, by the aid of a draw-bench put in motion by a steam engine orother suitable power, and, thus I bring the beveled or straight edges(as the case may be) closely together. In some cases I also heat theturned up skelp to a welding heat in an air furnace or a reverberatoryfurnace, and weld the joint by any of the known means,

namely, by peening upon a mandrel in swages or by beating the joint upona mandrel inserted in the skelp with a hammer on a grooved anvil, or bypassing the turned-up skelp through grooved rollers or by drawing thesame through dies or pincers having in them a bell-mouthed aperture bythe aid of a draw bench moved by suitable power by either of which meansthe joint may be firmly welded and a tube or hollow cylinder formed. I

into the billet by hydraulic pressure or by any other severe pressure,where great pressure is necessary, or by hand pressure only where it isnot. I then place the billet so charged into an oven, stove, muffle orother suitable medium, to dry the sand or other material within thebillet and when the sand is dry I insert a plug within the other end ofthe billet and drive or weld the plug into the billet as is beforementioned in respect of the opposite end. I then place the billet (socharged and plugged up) within a suitable furnace, which maybe a commonfurnace, an air furnace or a reverberatory furnace and when the billethas obtained'a proper heat (which may be for some purposes a cherry redheat while for others a welding heat may be required) and while at suchheat I pass the charged billet through a pair of grooved rollers put inmotion by a steam engine or other suitable power, by which means thecharged billet is drawn out or lengthened to'a rod or bar of any desiredlength, the sand or other material within the billet being drawn out orreduced in diameterat thesame time in the same proportion as the metaland it will be found when cold to have become vitreous or stony intexture according to the material used for charging the billet and across section of the rod or bar will present the appearance of a' coreof stone or glass (as the case may be) coated with iron, the thicknessofthe iron coating being determined by the weight or quantity of thatmetal used in preparing the billet. 'In the process of lengthening thecharged billet similar rollers may be used to those now used in theordinary manufacture of flat or round iron rods, or instead of thediagonal section roughing rollers now used for the process ordinarilytermed breaking down the rods or bars, rollers having circular orelliptical grooves on their external circumference may be used by whichthe rod or bar will not be subjected to so severe a strain as in thefirst mentioned rollers.

In preparing the billets according to my process for larger purposessuch for instance as for railway rails it will be necessary and I findit desirable on account of theheavy nature of the work to pile the ironin the ordinary manner that is practised for making railway railsleaving a hollow in the center of the pile of a requisite diameter toreceive the sand or other material.

In some cases I prefer a difierent mode of inserting the sand in whichcases I make a cylinder or case of the requisite length and diameter ofthin sheet iron and of sufiicient size to contain as much sand or othermaterial as Idesire to employ. I close one end of this case, fill itwith sand or. other material, ram in the sand thoroughly, dry it, andloosely close the other end of the case (which I denominate a core). Ithen place in the center of a pile of iron and after heating the pile somade I roll or draw it out as before mentioned with respect to rods orbars. The core may be placed in any part of the pile (other than thecenter) where more advantageous to effect a saving of the better kind ofiron when desired. This mode of filling the billets would apply ofcourse only to such descriptions of rails as are or may be made ofvarious qualities of iron, but certain classes of rails are of but onequality of iron throughout and to provide for the core in such rails itwill be necessary to stamp out or otherwise remove a sufficient portionof iron from the center of the bloom or pile after it has undergone thenecessary forging, this may be done by means of a steam hammer or a tiltor forge hammer provided with a suitable punch fixed on either thehammer or anvil block or by any other suitable apparatus for punching orstriking out the center of a bloom or pile. In some instances I havefound it to be unnecessary to plug or close the billets or cores, thedoing of which depends entirely upon the nature of the article to beproduced.

To produce copper and brass rods, rails and bars according to myinvention I either cast or bore an ingot or billet of the form alreadydescribed and after charging the same with sand or other material andplug ging up the ends as before mentioned I pass the billet in a coldstate through dies,

pincers or tongs having a suitable aperture therein, by the aid of adraw bench put in motion by a steam engine or other suitable power. Ianneal the billet as occasion may require. hen I use Muntzs metal toproduce a rod, rail or bar I either cast the ingot or bore the billetand afterward roll or draw it in a red hot state toform the article.Copper billets may also be rolled hot if preferred.

My improvements in the manufacture of metallic tubes consist inproducing tubes of various descriptions of metal by treating the variousmetals to be used in the same manner as is already described forproducing solid rods and bars ofiron, copper and brass and after havingproduced the metal rod of any desired length I cut it into suitablepieces for the purpose desired and bore or drill out the core of sand orother material by any suitable drills worked horizontally or verticallyin a lathe or otherwise as may be found most convenient.

When I find the sand of the locality in which the manufacture ofarticles according to my process is carried on to be of a nature to berendered by fusion too hard and stony to be afterward drilled outeconomically I use in its stead for charging the billet silica or othersimilar earth incapable of fusion which may readily be removed by boringor drilling. By these means I am enabled to produce a tube in iron,copper, brass or Muntzs metal parallel on its external and internalsurfaces or taper from end to end if desired by using a billet taperedinternally without either welding or brazing. In the drawing heretoannexed and making part of this specification, Figure 1 represents acomposite billet, i. (2., a metallic tube, filled with sand and pluggedat both ends ready to be drawn out to the required length and diameter;Fig. 2 represents a section of said billet, one end plugged up and theplug ready to be inserted and welded into the other end; Fig. 8represents a round composite rod of sand and metal, formed by theextension of the billet between grooved drawing rolls; and Fig. 4represents a section of the same; Fig. 5 represents the rod with itsmetallic ends cutoff, and Fig. 6 represents a section of the same; Fig.7 represents a metallic tube formed by removing from the rod, shown byFigs. 5 and 6, and Fig. 8 represents a section of the tube.

In all these figures a denotes the metallic tube or casing, Z) the endplugs of metal, and s, the sand or filling.

Having thus described the nature of my said invent-ion of improvementsinthe manufacture of metallic rods, rails, bars and tubes, and the mannerin which the same is to be performed I declare that I do not confinemyself to the precise details hereinbefore mentioned so long as the mainfeatures and particular nature of my invention be retained, but

I claim? The production of metallic rods, rails and bars having theappearance of solid metal with a core or center of sand, sandy, earthy,ashy or other arenaceous material in man-

